


Gift and curse

by Wrathofscribbles



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2018-12-23
Packaged: 2019-09-25 16:36:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17124896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wrathofscribbles/pseuds/Wrathofscribbles
Summary: To heal is an Oracle's calling, but the magic isn't exclusively theirs.





	Gift and curse

**Author's Note:**

> **Big bold reminder that Final Fantasy XV and all of its content is property of Square Enix.** I just like to play in the sandpit they've created for the fans.

When Noctis is eight he discovers the healing gifts of his bloodline, though he’s too young to understand the importance of it as his first marker of magical ability, too fresh in the power to know how to harness it properly, safely.

All Noctis understands at the time is his Dad’s hurt his knee again and his Mama used to kiss his owwies away and give him some chocolate.  So that’s what he does for his Dad!  Plants a big _MWUAH_ on his knee and offers him the bar of chocolate one of the cooks gave him at lunchtime, and when he asks if his Dad feels better his Dad looks at him all funny and silent but nods his head.

“Good,” he cries, jumping to his feet and punching the air, “I’m gonna play with Iggy now, Dad.  Love you!”

He doesn’t see the tremble in Regis’s fingers, or the way he claws at the Ring of the Lucii as though to somehow rip it off.  He doesn’t hear him curse the Astrals and their choices, their ruin of his family.

* * *

Noctis is twelve before any hint of magic makes itself known again, shocked as it’d been by the Marilith attack, forced deep into his bones in an effort to shield him from the Scourge.  Once again it comes to him as healing, an unconscious tingle working over Regis’s scalp and skull and through the scars on his face from where Noctis delicately lays his hands on his cheeks, eyes closed and brow furrowed in concentration as though he can will the migraine away.  And he _does_ , with an ease that stops the breath in Regis’s lungs and stabs his heart with a hundred blades.

Then his son sags against him, exhausted after such a short spell, and Regis hugs him as he rarely can these days without offending his teenage sensibilities.

“Better?” Noctis asks.

“Much better,” he replies, more than a little choked up, and decides a day spent napping on the sofa and watching cheesy movies instead of slogging through paperwork and meetings and reports on casualties and preparing new lessons for the Glaives and… well anything other than _spending some time with his son_ is a day well spent.  Noctis, of course, doesn’t protest the change of pace.

* * *

Less than a year later Noctis discovers warping and all the hazards accompanying it, from ruining priceless paintings by accidentally coming out of a warp too early and having his leg still partway phased through a wall to poor spatial awareness and tumbling down a flight of stairs upon reclaiming the pen he’s using as a focal point, to sneezing on the lesson and rocketing backwards out of a window and scaring a decade off his father’s life as he gives chase to save him from an untimely demise some 20 floors below.  Regis cuts himself on the jagged remains of the window in his haste, a stinging tear in his forearm turning his hand into a horror show as the flow and fall of blood gets scrambled in the warp, and Noctis panics at the sight of it and latches onto his elbow, heals him so thoroughly even the ache in his bad leg disappears.

At the cost of Noctis fainting at his feet.

He resolves, then, to teach Noctis how to pull the magic from his fingertips like ribbons of silk, to lace it in food and drink and first aid kits.

* * *

By the time Noctis is sixteen he’s worn himself down to blood and bone more times than Regis dares to count.  He’s single-handedly created a stockpile of curative items sure to last the Glaive the better part of a year, has a stash in his own Armiger for his friends, and has angered Bahamut on more than one occasion by sitting in the Crystal’s vault and calling on its power as rightful heir to it to fashion the most potent potions Regis has ever had to force down his throat, all while spitting insults and contempt at the Astral.

And force down his throat Regis does, because they taste _awful_ , a mix of burnt metal and sour lemon candies thanks to the energy drinks Noctis uses as vessels for the magic.

There’s spite and fear and wild-eyed _fury_ to Noctis whenever Regis senses the thunderclouds of Bahamut’s rage and goes to fetch his son before he can be squashed underfoot, Chosen King or not, a bloodlust in the feral grin he shoots over one bony shoulder as Regis hoists him up and hobbles along with him until a spelled door separates them from the god of war once more.  He can’t help but wonder… have they already crossed the point of no return?  In trying to help others… has Noctis left himself open and vulnerable to the nature and influence of daemons already, as the Forgotten King did all those centuries ago?  Is the price of their healing magic their sanity?  Is this why it’s so greatly diminished in favour of residing with the Oracle bloodline instead?

But no, Noctis is still Noctis, as evidenced by the container of jam tarts he pulls from the Armiger as soon as they’re in the relative safety of Regis’s study… where Clarus waits with his frown of disapproval and folded arms of doom already firmly in place.  Damn.

* * *

The potions Noctis left for him certainly help him through the celebration of their surrender to Niflheim, but he is too old, too slow, too _weak_ for them to prove much use in the fight against Glauca.

At least Noctis is safe beyond the collapse of the city walls.

* * *

“It’s finally over,” Noctis says and it breaks his heart to hear him sound so weary, but he can’t allow his boy rest just yet.  He isn’t gentle when he grabs a handful of hair and yanks Noctis’s head back – there is no _time_ for gentle – and as those striking blue eyes, Aulea’s eyes, flare open in confusion and pain, he upends that last potion in his Armiger and pours the contents down Noct’s throat.

“You will _live_ , Noctis.  Live and be free of your fate.”

* * *

Noctis wakes up on the throne, in a fair amount of pain but _alive_ , and Regis smiles, closes his eyes, and knows no more.

It is, indeed, finally over.


End file.
